The first letters of each chapter spell out a sentence when you line them up. Nicole Is Dead.
Each weapon, save for the pulse rifle is actually a modified tool. However flimsy that justification may be, each one makes sense given the universe and setting of the games if examined more closely.
The Plasma Cutter is meant to function as a handheld cutter, for slicing through rocks and making precision cuts to make ore smaller and easier to transport. It's just been modified to fire plasma bursts instead of emitting a solid beam.
The flamethrower is meant to be used by miners to melt ice that is blocking access to ore, such as that on comets.
The Line Gun is essentially a heavy Plasma Cutter, meant for slicing through tougher rock using thermal cutting. The secondary mine function is likely meant for tight spaces that can't be normally accessed, ie launch the mine into the opening and after a few seconds it detonates and creates a larger more accessible space. It would also be useful for one traditional method of mining or quarrying hard rock types like granite or marble: a series of holes or seams are cut into a rock face, and explosives inserted and detonated. If done correctly, the blasts fracture the mass of rock into chunks of controlled size while severing them from the surrounding material.
The Force Gun is intended to provide heavy, portable blasting power for terraforming, smashing large rocks into smaller pieces and deflecting wayward debris away from miners in zero-gravity environments.
The Ripper is designed to function as a handheld saw, with a gravity-tether blade making it ideal for cutting objects that are dangerous to approach, such as live wires. Its blades are sharp enough that it can also cut through solid rock.
The Contact Beam is a portable heavy jackhammer; intended to soften tough rocks to get at the minerals contained within.
The Detonator (introduced in Dead Space 2) is designed to safely blast ore into larger pieces, as well as create "safe zones" around miners in environments with lots of debris; launch mines around the work area, and any object that crosses its path trips the mine, potentially preventing collisions with miners.
The Javelin Gun (introduced in Dead Space 2) can be used for remote telemetry and analysis of rock; launch the javelin spike into the target, and it diagnoses what kinds of ore are inside, or can be used to split apart rocks as well.
After the initially realistic handling of sound in a vacuum, some external objects suddenly start making sound... This can seem inconsistent, until you realize this happens for things that vibrate the surface you were standing on, meaning that it was truly being handled realistically, rather than just making everything silent except for player-sourced sounds.
To add to this, if you are hit by the pressure wave of an explosion, the air in your suit reacts to it, making a muffled boom sound. Again, this is realistic as you are RIGHT next to the explosion, and being physically impacted by the burst of high-pressure gas that created said explosion.
How can Isaac sever limbs, crush skulls and cut through bone with a simple curbstomp? Simple - he's wearing magnetic boots. As he's about to stomp, he activates them momentarily, pulling his foot down hard enough to facilitate Ludicrous Gibs.
Many people complain that the strategies for dealing with dead bodies is obvious and simple (shooting necromorphs that appear to be dead; stomping dead bodies to prevent infectors from using them), but that is only because they are only watching the situation. Isaac must shoot any dead enemy he finds on the chance they are faking and desecrate human remains because they might attack him? While dealing with the necromorphs is simple because they are nowhere near human, he has to stomp through dead bodies with his own foot, feeling their snapping bones and muscles. There is a reason why he starts frantically cursing when he stomps in Dead Space 2.
Ever wonder how the hell it makes sense that by blowing off all the limbs with the mining tools, you kill the necromorph?
Perhaps it's explainable by the fact that they're all telepathically controlled by the Hivemind. When it detects that the necromorph no longer has enough limbs to be functional, it could just be withdrawing its control, thus 'killing' the necromorph.
With the revelation in the sequels that the Necromorphs seek to spread the infection and are capable of remaining dormant for hundreds of years, the theory that the Necromorph's are simply rendered dormant by having their limbs blown off, makes a lot of sense. Being unable to spread the infection further, they switch off and become biomass waiting for the time of Convergence, when they will join with other necromorphs to become a Brethren Moon.
Also consider that necromorphs are a parasitic life-form that infests the body like fungi mycorrhiza- when you cut off limbs, what looks like tentacles wriggle around for a few seconds before retracting inwards. This suggests the actual "creature" is the network of tentacles animating and converting the body, not the body itself. There's very little it needs to control in the head aside from things like eyes and ears, and even less in the torso. While some Necromorphs do fair less well without heads than others (slashers in particular will flail about attacking in your general direction) losing the head is more of an inconvenience than a critical wound. Likewise, a torso shot for most necromorphs is just hitting that spare meat that holds the useful stuff together. The strands in the arms, legs, tails, or tendrils on the other hand, constitute a significant portion of the necromorph's mass, so cutting off the limbs damages the organism inside severely. Damage enough, and the organism inside dies or goes dormant, and the corpse it controls goes inert.
The fall of the USM Valor is generally regarded as Fridge Logic at best. However, a number of considerations make it far more plausible than it initially seems.
First, there is no indication that the single Slasher inside the escape pod was the only necromorph to travel on that pod; any number of them could have been clinging to the exterior.
Second, even a basic Slasher takes a long time to kill if you are shooting it in the center of mass, as soldiers are trained to do, and even longer if your weapon is a pulse rifle with few or no upgrades, as grunts are likely to get. If the ship has any fully upgraded rifles, they are presumably restricted to the higher ranks, who wouldn't be in charge of opening an escape pod. This is all assuming, of course, anyone even thought it necessary to hike to the armory and get a plasma rifle before opening a civilian escape pod.
Third, for any of them form at all, at least one form of necromorph must be capable of spontaneously generating without the presence of an Infector- most likely the infectors themselves. So long as that single Slasher kills one marine, they now have to deal with a Slasher and an unspecified number of Stasis Slashers.
Fourth, just try hitting a Stasis Slasher with your own Stasis module, and shudder as you realize that even an upgraded module (which, again, grunts wouldn't likely have) doesn't mean anything if you can't hit the target in the first place.
Fifth, apart from all the physical disadvantages facing the crew of the Valor, they would have to overcome the psychological resistance to killing their former comrades.
Sixth, the biggest battle on the ship occurs in the barracks; presumably, at least some of these soldiers died in their sleep or still trying to figure out what all the screaming was about. This idea is reinforced by a throwaway line in a log stating that crew transports are Sleeper Starships- meaning that some of, possibly even a majority of, the crew may have still been in or waking up from stasis as sirens started blaring and a pack of necromorphs burst into the open communal space with little to no cover.
Seventh, this also suggests why it took at most a few hours for a military ship to be overrun when some people on the Ishimura apparently held out for days: The military ship was a compact vessel consisting of a few large cargo bays and communal barracks with a handfull of smaller rooms in an efficient, nearly linear layout. What the civilian vessel lacked in military grade bulkheads it made up for with decades of haphazard retrofittings creating a sprawling tangle of service decks, recreational areas, processing facilities, private quarters, and dead end rooms that technically should have had air vents if you read the legal code closely.
Eigth, given that necromorph corpses disappear once Isaac leaves the room they are in, it's entirely possible that "dead" necromorphs are being reabsorbed into the biomass or crawling off to heal, and springing up again later on. Maybe the Marines did kill the Slasher (and any other necromorophs that may have traveled with it) - but they made the mistake of thinking it would stay dead.
Finally, Fridge Brilliance really sets in if you find the Unitologist graffiti on the Valor. One or more members of the crew, therefore, must have been devout Unitologists like Mercer. It is possible these individuals misled or outright sabotaged their own crew in a deliberate attempt to "ascend". Given what we learn in the sequels about their range and mechanisms, marker insanity is also possible.
This is without even mentioning that the Valor was purposely nearby as part of the coverup to pick up Kendra as soon as her mission was complete. It is highly possible that they picked up the escape pod only minutes after it launched, beginning the infection almost immediately.
Taken together, these points turn what seems like the biggest headshaker in the game into its most horrifying sequence- not only is it plausible that the Valor could have fallen so quickly, everything about the ship made it easier for the necromorphs to slaughter the crew.
After the Valor hits the Ishimura, Hammond is able to communicate with you again, saying that somebody was jamming his comms. When we later find out that Kendra was the mole and not Hammond, it seems likely that she was the one jamming his signal to cut him off.
You ever wonder where all that Meat Moss that starts to cover the entire deck comes from? Obviously it comes from dead biomass, but that also explains what happens to the corpse you leave behind. They become part of The Corruption, the fleshy growths you find covering the walls and floors in the later chapters. When Isaac kills everyone and then leaves, the dead bodies and limbs are rounded up and merged with the growths, giving it additional biomass to spread. Or they could even go into the creation of more advanced forms, such as the brutes you find being created from body parts left around. Even dead bodies don't have to be touched by an infector to be claimed by the infestation, like how the Guardians were just people killed on the growth.
70% of dust is dead skin. The growth probably starts from the dead skin cells that naturally fall from people and accumulates over time. Then we add corpses and bodily fluids (as mentioned above). Finally add oxygen and suitable conditions for growth. The result? Meat walls.
Nicole's message involves her killing herself on camera after saying goodbye to Isaac. Which sounds really messed up, and kind of a cruel thing to do to you SO... unless you very definitely don't want him to come looking for you, on account of horrible alien monsters killing everyone on your ship.
The eerie songs used in the trailers. "Twinkle Twinkle" is obvious, but if you know your history you'll know that "Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosies" is an old song that referred to the Great Plague breakout in England - the 'rosy' sores, people hoping that herbs in their pockets would protect them, and finally the sneezing. And this is one hell of a plague.
Why can't Isaac use dead enemy's blades to shoot back at them like he can do in the sequels? He doesn't know how to do that yet. It's possible that lining up a blade to be perfectly facing the enemy requires some special gestures. It's not until Isaac sees a man do it in a recording in DS 2 that he learns how to align the blades. Isaac is also scared out of his wits during Dead Space 1, so he probably also doesn't want to take any chances using an unconventional tactic.
Why is it that the glass barriers Isaac can't break through all over the Ishimura often get shattered by the time whatever's happening on the other side is done? Simple; the glass is designed so that the weapons can't break through it. With everyone from guards to common engineers carrying weapons capable of destroying anything in sight if they're not careful, it makes sense for the glass to be designed so that the plasma can't cut through it. However, they didn't exactly plan for an Eldritch Abomination slamming themselves through it, meaning the sheer amount of "Brute" force they can give out will cause it to shatter.
Now, you'd think there would be no subtle horror to Dead Space, seeing as how it's pretty frikkin' obvious that it's a Survival Horror game, but there is at least one point where Fridge Horror rears it's ugly head. Let's take the second chapter. You go to the hub where you start your missions. In the corner between the two mission entryways, you find an ammo pack. So far so good, right? Towards the end of the chapter, you return to the hub and the corner is no longer unoccupied... There are a number of body bags (read: handy Oscar Meyer Zip-Loc snack packs) there, now. They're gone again in Chapter 5. EEP! This means that the necromorphs are watching your every move. They know where you are and can come get you whenever they're good and darn ready.
Or, mayhap, an even worse thing may have come up in which you realise that you took the ammo from the storage locker and then other soldiers, who needed the ammo, died because you decided to take even more ammo. You heartless bastard you.
Now, depending on how fast the necromorphs spread, the whole crew could have been killed off in minutes. Now just imagine something like THAT spreading to earth.
Okay, and how about something else? At some point of the game, near the end, Isaac meets his girl, he must protect her from death (asking her where she was hiding in the first place never occurred to him). If she dies, so does he. At the end of the game Isaac finds out that his girlfriend was dead long before he even got to Ishimura. And all this time the Marker was feeding him illusions, in order to be brought back to the planet surface. Okay so how PC should we see his possible death while failing to save her that time? Or better yet, what could possibly be the cause for Dead Space 2?
Think about it. Isaac could STILL be feeling the effects of the marker as he goes to the ship... what if the Necromorphs AREN'T necromorphs...
Or alternatively, think of Isaac's girlfriend's message. He must have played the entire message on board the Kellion, as Kendra asks how many times Isaac will watch it, and knows how it ends later in the game. That means he knew she killed herself and yet during the entire game, he thought she was still alive and was looking for her. That means the marker had nothing to do with it, Isaac had gone mad before he ever arrived!
I doubt that anyone would have allowed Isaac on the mission if he would be so obviously unstable. Remember how Hammond talks to him about Nicole still being potentially alive and that he will try help him find her? It's more likely Isaac cut the transmission before the bit were she kills herself, fooling himself into thinking she is still alive. Only Kendra could have known since she was given intelligence on every person on the mission.
Or Kendra edited the transmission herself to keep Isaac in the dark.
The space tow truck company wouldn't allow someone who's spouse just died onto a mission to fix a radio? They're not soldiers or secret agents. And he doesn't have to be "writing things in his own blood," crazy, just "I've blocked out the memory of the end of the video and refuse to face her death," crazy.
Didn't matter, they were all going to die any ways for Kendra's mission. Maybe he was all they had on hand for the repairs as well.
Talking about Nicole. Look at her screen flashing on board of the Valor. Her face briefly turns into a skull for a split second. Now, why would the marker do something like that if it wants Isaac to think that she is still alive? The answer, it doesn't. It's Isaac own mind fighting against the marker influence trying to remind him that she is dead.
The Virus animates dead tissue. This actually wouldn't stop it working on the living, since hair, fingernails and the outer layers of skin cells are all dead tissue; so is the majority of household dust. This realization can create hideous mental imagery. One of the logs obtained after beating the game supports this. A strange growth appeared in the ventilation ducts of the research facility that discovered the necromorphs.
In the first novel, Martyr, one scientist accidentally injects himself with a Necromorph tissue culture; he begins to change immediately and eventually turns into an Infector. That means it can affect the top couple layers of your skin, your hair and your nails, but the pathogen's not airborne. As to why the Corruption starts growing, perhaps the Infector drips it's viral culture everywhere, starting it growing in the dust.
In the Med Bay, you enter a huge room growing fetuses. Mankind's sunk kind of low, if it's okay to grow babies in pods to harvest organs and limbs. And there's hundreds of them. And then they become zombie fetuses. The Virus has all the bodies it'll ever need.
While fighting the Hive Mind, pay close attention to its screams and you’ll hear that they sound less like those of a giant monster and more like a crowd of people. Then remember that this thing is comprised of the biomass of everyone who was infected in the first outbreak on Aegis 7 200 years ago, and possibly even those killed when the mining colony was overwhelmed by the infection. Yikes.
There's a difference between cutting and cauterizing. The flash-projectile of a plasma cutter will easily sever limbs without actually applying sufficient heat to cauterize. Cauterization requires applying heat for long enough to kill an entire layer of cells, which takes more than a half-second.
Related to the Nicole fridge brilliance up there. If she didn't want Isaac to come for her, then why didn't she just tell him what was happening? In fact, if you are capable of sending out messages like that, then why can't you inform people that there's a bio-infestation and have them pass on that information? How did she send it if the communication satellites were damaged? Was Hammond's crew closer to the system? Why did Earth Gov put some warning beacon down after the incident? Seriously, the lack of any signal causes no less than four more incidents. Hammond's crew from the Kellion boards and gets trapped, the Valor comes in and gets slaughtered, "Magpie" salvage ships come in and find Marker pieces (it doesn't end well), and Nolan's ship comes in and also gets screwed over by Marker pieces. The first infection is tragic, the fifth one is just pathetic.
The Kellion was part of Kendra's secret mission to retrieve the Marker, so it was allowed to go, and the Valor was backup for her mission, so naturally, it was allowed to go as well.
You also have to remember that Unitologists are what sent the Ishimura to that planet to begin with, and there's a log somewhere that says it's not supposed to be there at all, that somehow, mining that planet is illegal but no one will care where the ore came from if they can just get it back to Earthspace. The short story is that EarthGov did try to block off the planet, but if you're determined to get there, there's not much they can actually do: the Ishimura went to the planet illegally, and everyone ended up following them for one reason or another.
On the Valor, you find that the grav-plating is broken in places. There's a soldier pinned to the ceiling and he's still alive. Okay, one: how is he still alive where ever over instance of something biological thrown upwards is gibbed, and two: why can't you save him?
Perhaps the grav-plating in that instance was not so broken as the other occurrences, to where it was strong enough to trap the soldier but not to gib him. And perhaps the broken grav-plating was strong enough to overcome Isaac's kinesis module.
There are several instances where a door is locked until someone is killed. The guy knocking on the door to the room with the plasma cutter, the scientist killed by the Lurker, Hammond, and Jacob Temple. Why does the door open after they're dead and why can't you just break the glass/smash down the door with your tools made for cutting metal and pulverizing rock? An elite Slasher (made of Captain Mathius' corpse) easily breaks through glass similar to that and some of you weapons are more powerful than their claws.
If you think about it, the last thing you want on your spaceship is a tool that can easily and accidentally pierce the hull or the safety glass. Sure, all the tools are modified to be much more deadly than originally designed, but they would still be far below the threshold required for destruction of the ship unless used in a valid engineering application (which the modified tools are singularly terrible for, really). It's all about safety, even in a dangerous situation.
How does the medikit heal Isaac, and why are there so many of them on this ship?
It's explicitly stated that RIG functions include limited emergency medical support. Presumably medikits are an advanced variant of modern emergency wound care compounds like hemostatic powders and fibrin glues used by a RIG to patch and regenerate non-critical injuries. For bonus fridge logic, the somewhat cavalier approach to worker safety on the Ishimura makes a lot of sense if third-degree burns can be healed over a lunch break and replacing a severed limb is as easy as a trip to the med bay for a cloned replacement and a few days of rehab.
Why can you find ammo, money or medikits on dead necromorphs?
The Necromorphs being former crew, what they're dropping is what they were carrying before they were killed and mutated. And since they were trying to fight the Necromorphs, some of that was ammo, and since it's a mining ship some of it was tool supplies, and the med-kits would be useful for both. Its also reasonable to assume that some of it is simply incidental rubbish- loose change and power cells that dropped into a vent years before getting stuck in the gristle of a necromorph crawling through the ductwork.
How does the shop work, can anyone on this ship buy a pulse rifle if he has enough money?
As repeatedly covered, it's most likely that the shop uses 3d printing to rapidly produce items on demand, and to control who can buy what. You can only get a rifle, for instance, if you have access to the schematics for printing a rifle, or an existing rifle to create schematics from.
Why are there multiple levels suits ? Why does Isaac only have a level 1 suit if level 5 or 6, but it's a "military suit" suits exist?
For the same reason an engineer doesn't show up wearing full military-grade hazmat gear to repair a broken piece of manufacturing equipment. Issac was sent to the Ishimura to, at worst, make enough repairs for a badly damaged spacecraft to limp back to port- so his starting suit is just the standard safety gear he'd wear any day on his slightly dangerous job.
What's the purpose of those save machines ?
I feel like in-universe the save-panels may be access panels to check if you've authorisation, or who's going where, especially since they usually show up in important places. As an engineer, Isaac has special authorisation.
The "Save Points" are RIG synchronization points. They tell the main computer where someone is, their health status, and what they have on them (and yes, it's used to check for stolen goods and contraband).
Why can't you open most of the lockers ? How do people in-universe open them ? Why can you find some of them unlocked later?
Same reason you can't just open other people's lockers in real life- they're locked, and you don't have the key. It's never explicitly stated, but it's likely to be similar to a smartphone or a "keyless" car- some system recognizes authorized users and unlocks when they try to open it. Some are used for communal storage of spare supplies, so they aren't locked to begin with or recognize Issac as authorized engineering crew; others unlock as Issac gradually gets higher levels of clearance, or the locks simply fail as the ship's systems go increasingly haywire. A lot of them also have indicator lights showing that they are in use- if the light is dark, they're empty so you don't need to bother with them.
Who thought that it was a good idea to let the technician go without a kinesis module?
Presumably they don't let people just carry those around wherever they want, and they're not much good without a charging system anyway. Normally it would be trivial to check one out from the ship if you needed it.
And why is there Oxygen and Statis Recharge Stations in convenient places?
Those are safety measures. It makes sense for them to be where they're needed most.
Is the ship's AI attempting to be helpful and failing utterly, or are Isaac and co on the wrong side of one of the most reasonable Zeroth Law Rebellions in fiction?
While the low-grade A.I.s in the Dead Space universe may not be genius-level intellects, the logic of the situation is fairly simple: It would be very, very bad for potential carriers of the 100% lethal plague to leave the ship, thus potentially spreading it to the rest of human civilization. Isaac is talking to people who do not exist and generally acting like the crew did just before they started killing each other. Isaac is attempting to leave the ship. The AI cannot directly act against the humans aboard the Ishimura, but it can be "helpful" to them- say, for instance, following the protocol of initiating a quarantine when biohazards are detected in the area.
It’s stated in various lore that Planet Cracking is unsustainable. However it is estimated that there are 250,000,000,000 planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, not counting moons. And they’re mining entire planets of their resources so it would take a while for the spoils of a planetcrack to run out. It would take billions of years for them to run out of planets even if only 1 in 100 planets were viable for mining.
The problem is not just finding planets that can be mined, or planets with enough mineral resources to be worth mining, but finding them in places where the products can be transported and sold at a profit in a reasonable timeframe. While the operation of the Shockpoint Drive is intentionally kept vague, what is known is that it requires a significant amount of fuel to operate, that travel times can stretch into weeks for distant locations, and that the system requires some sort of beacon or gate at the destination- meaning that the engine's range is still limited by light speed for initial travel times. At its construction the Ishimura was the largest ship ever equipped with a Shockpoint Drive, further indicating some sort of difficulty with scaling the technology to industrial scales.
They’re still mining an entire planet’s worth of resources, so one planet crack would provide an astronomical amount of resources. And there are countless asteroids in space that can also be mined.
obtained after beating the game supports this. A strange growth appeared in the ventilation ducts of the research facility that discovered the necromorphs.